The Battle of France -- Source Conflicts

[Sea Skimmer]

Parts of that article are shaky grounds because it seems to only want to deal with completely destroyed tanks; which given the simplicity of WW2 designs only occurred if they exploded, even relatively heavy fire damage could be repaired if only the vehicle could be recovered. That wouldn’t really change the direct effect on a battle of tanks being damaged and crewmen killed. It wasn’t even that uncommon in WW2 for tanks to be ‘knocked out’ that were actually still drivable, except for the crew being all killed or wounded. Many tanks were damaged several times before being finally destroyed, and that's exactly what you'd expect from strafing damage. this makes basing kills off of post battlefield examinations troublesome at best, you are only getting to count stuff totally destroyed or which the enemy could not recover. A tank knocked out four times and then repaired the last time in ordered to retreat doesn't get counted. The Germans had excellent battlefield recovery and salvage teams. The ones Rommel had were infamously good, and helped convince all armies that knocked out enemy tanks needed to be destroyed by engineer planted explosives whenever possible least they be dragged away during the night.

It also seems to fall into a trap I've noticed before, of assuming that if a pilot claimed a tank kill, but you can't link that to a tank it should be ignored without examining losses of other types of armored vehicles which could be easily mistaken. Pilots ability to tell vehicle types apart was poor enough already without expecting that level of distinction. In is nice that it draws attention to the massive numbers of WW2 tactical aircraft that got shot down, and by extension the staggering number of sorties they flew.

[Rekkon]

True, but soft kills that were repaired or recovered are more difficult to measure. Plus, statistically speaking, would not the recovery of knocked out tanks affect the R&A counts for ground based weapons systems as well? If you are finding only a small portion of left behind hulls attributable to air launched ordinance, the overall conclusion of the article would seem to be sound, even if the exact percentages might vary from those given. In fact, if aircraft soft kills are more likely to be repaired and recovered, that only reenforces the author's point about the limited effectiveness of WWII aircraft against heavily armored AFVs.

As for ignoring non-tank kills, the focus of the article is on aircraft against that subset of AFVs, though the author seems a bit inconsistent in terminology in that regard ("heavily armored vehicles," "fully tracked AFVs," etc.). So that does not seem unreasonable since the article is not disputing the effectiveness of air attack on lighter and/or open topped vehicles.

[Sea Skimmer]

True, but soft kills that were repaired or recovered are more difficult to measure.

I certainly agree, and source material of a consistent nature. But I think its very wrong to go from showing that pilots over claimed, when they massively over claimed all types of targets, so aircraft can't do it at all. Some of the overclaims for shipping in WW2 are completely astounding, but it was very much a fact that aircraft ended up dominating the operations of ships. It just took a vast effort, like all air operations in WW2 did.

Plus, statistically speaking, would not the recovery of knocked out tanks affect the R&A counts for ground based weapons systems as well?

I'd would imagine so, though its all about the situation. If you loose control of ground rapidly you will have zero recovery of your losses, while in a protracted battle you make even recover irreparable wrecks to strip for parts if they can still be rolled.

If you are finding only a small portion of left behind hulls attributable to air launched ordinance, the overall conclusion of the article would seem to be sound, even if the exact percentages might vary from those given. In fact, if aircraft soft kills are more likely to be repaired and recovered, that only reenforces the author's point about the limited effectiveness of WWII aircraft against heavily armored AFVs.

Aircraft more often attacked tanks behind the lines, out of direct fire range due to the difficulty of coordinated true close air support. That also makes recovery the easiest for the enemy since nothing is going to stop him doing it during the night even if air operations during the day preclude it. A tank knocked out by direct fire from the ground is less likely to be recovered. I wouldn't consider a disablement a soft kill, that term works for describing warship damage to non critical areas but being disabled isn't really soft. You've been put out of action. That wouldn't be a soft kill, that's a mobility kill and it may be a partial crew kill.

As for ignoring non-tank kills, the focus of the article is on aircraft against that subset of AFVs, though the author seems a bit inconsistent in terminology in that regard ("heavily armored vehicles," "fully tracked AFVs," etc.). So that does not seem unreasonable since the article is not disputing the effectiveness of air attack on lighter and/or open topped vehicles.

That's the problem out of hand, all the data presented is focused on Russian and German armor, both of them used large numbers of equally important self propelled guns, so numbers concluding the air was ineffective against both types means a lot more then just focusing on tanks when we blatantly know pilots would be claiming both together along with lots of other stuff.

[Gunhead]

Are we talking about tactical air power through out the war or just in the battle of France? Late war ground attack planes were much more effective against tanks due to use of larger caliber guns mounted on the planes and could knock out tanks with increased reliability. Bombs were pretty ineffectual at taking out tanks, unless you expended a lot of them in essence carpet bombing an assembly area.

-Gunhead

[Force Lord]

IIRC, neither the UK nor the USA had dedicated anti-tank aircraft throughout the war, unless we include the Typhoon with its four 20mm autocannons as 'anti-tank'. Even then there was no real equivalent to the Ju-87G series or the Hs-129. The only Allied 'anti-tank' aircraft that I can remember was the Soviet Il-2.

[Sea Skimmer]

The British had Hurricanes with 40mm guns in North Africa which did very well. The US never fielded any of its planes with high velocity 37mm guns in numbers in Europe.

[Gunhead]

The British had Hurricanes with 40mm guns in North Africa which did very well. The US never fielded any of its planes with high velocity 37mm guns in numbers in Europe.

Was the performance of the 40mm the same as the Brit 2pndr? Speaking of the same, I'd imagine why focus when talking about air power vs. Tanks is focused on the eastern front. Heavy armor was focused heavily there. You have any data about rocket performance against armor Skim? The view I'm getting is U.S / British air power vs. Tanks was not as nearly as good as the soviets and Germans too fielded better dedicated antitank planes.

-Gunhead

[Sea Skimmer]

The gun was special, adapted from an older 37mm aircraft gun and called 40 mm Class S, but the ammo was somewhat related to the naval 2pdr. It was withdrawn mainly because the carrying Hurricanes were too vulnerable to flak and fighters, common problem on all anti tank planes but very bad here since Hurricane had almost no armor. In realistic conditions the gun would defeat about 50mm of armor. A follow on design with the 47mm P gun, which would had had about 50% greater AP performance was tested but never entered mass production owing to the end of the war. A 57mm automatic gun, direct adaptation of the 6pdr anti tank gun was flown on Mosquitoes but primarily against U-boats rather then its intended tank targets. It would have been rather deadly when one remembers that the velocity of the aircraft adds to the velocity of the gun. Some trials were also flown with squeeze bore adaptors on both the British 40mm and US 37mm guns IIRC.

The British RP-3 rocket was standard for airborne use but had multiple warheads like most rockets. The solid 25lb AP head didn't work so well on tanks because it wasn't really fast enough to work like that, it was good against U-boats. The intended 60lb anti U-boat warhead meanwhile became standard for ground attacks, later a shaped charge was introduced. On paper it should have killed any tank it hit, and the HE one had enough blast effect to damage suspension and tracks if it landed right alongside. As I recall they also had an early HESH warhead, nothing is going to survive 60lb HESH if it actually hits.

US 3.5in and 4.5in rockets were smaller and neither was much designed for the anti tank role, first was anti U-boat, second had been intended as a surface to surface weapon, but shaped charges were fielded late war. Penetration for a shaped charge back then was usually about equal to the warhead diameter. The US had a bigger 5in rocket but it doesn't seem to have been used much in Europe, it was primarily a USN weapon and used a 5in shell as the warhead which might cause considerable damage to armor, but not really thick plates.

can't say much about Russian aircraft rockets, they used several different types some of which IIRC had shaped charges, but seem to have preferred shaped charge cluster bombs for anti armor attacks. The Il-2 would drop them in a dive bombing pass, salvoing all bombs on a single tank target. Then they'd turn to circling tactics with guns, if it was a model that had an effective AP gun, it took a while to get them in service.

[Gunhead]

Come to think of it, I don't recall IL-2 ever being armed with anything above 23mm cannons. Well there was a model armed with 37mm cannon as but was not considered successful. I somewhat doubt the effectiveness of the 3.5 and 4.5in rockets, mostly their accuracy and with 8-12cm of penetration you'd still need to hit the top armor specially when dealing with heavier tanks. The thing is, I haven't been able find any solid info on the after effect figures for HEAT rounds. Most sources I've seen agree you need a certain amount of over penetration to truely be effective, but they all disagree on how much. I've seen figures from 20 to 50%. My own sources peg it at around 30% but as they've pointed out it's really just figures on paper until you test fire it since the base figure is what the manufacturer tells you.
I do know that M1 bazooka which fires a 3.5in HEAT round did have trouble against T34s in Korea even when fired against the rear which prompted the introduction of the super bazooka.

-Gunhead

[Sea Skimmer]

Heavier tanks never made up a very large portion of German armor though, interestingly the Tiger tank which had 1 inch of top armor to start with later ended up with much thicker plates, suggesting to me that air attacks did destroy decent numbers of them. At least enough that the Germans were willing to loose some mobility and reliability in an already slow vehicle to protect against it. Most German AFVs had about 1in of top armor, though of course strafing is fairly likely to hit the thicker sides or rear. Target angle will of course increase the effective thickness, and cause lots of ricochets. I've read that the USAAF actually though some tanks died from .50cal because the bullets ricocheted into the air intakes and set the engines on fire, something that would not stop the tank from being recovered, and supposedly this was confirmed with a few ground examinations too, but its doubtful it was very a common way to get kills.

The Il-2 did mostly have a 23mm cannon, but a very good one. The ZPU-23 uses an evolution of that gun and cartridge to this day IIRC. As for over penetration, the reality is shaped charges are just erratic. You do need a margin past the armor thickness but how much will just vary. This was extra bad in WW2 because many shaped charges had bad fuses. The fuse delay would be too long, leading to the warhead breaking before it detonated. Studies found most US Bazooka kills were actually from the warhead squishing against the armor and acting as a form of HESH. This is how HESH was discovered by the British doing similar research. Your confused on Korea though. It was the basic 2.36in bazooka which mostly but not always failed, at least partly because of that same bad fusing problem, leading to hasty introduction of the 3.5in M20 Super Bazooka. The M20 was actually from about 1944 in design, but the end of WW2 had brought a halt to any priority to bring it into service while the Army tinkered with making better ammo for it on a very slim budget. M20 could defeat 280mm of armor and would have destroyed anything in WW2 which was the point. It was fairly credible into the 1960s.

[Gunhead]

Doh! I can't believe I messed up the warhead diameters on the bazookas. Maybe this topic needs it's own thread.

-Gunhead

[Sea Skimmer]

It might as well takeover this one at this point. Anyway, in the end it wasn't that important if air power did kill tanks or not because tanks couldn't accomplish much in larger then battalion scale operations, and even that is dicey, without extensive infantry, engineer and artillery support. Air power broke the combine arms team apart, and without that the tank in particular was vulnerable. All the more so since in WW2 nobody ever came up with an effective tank mounted mine clearing system except the flail tank and even flail tanks were never very satisfactory nor common. The western allies made things more troublesome then they should have by not fielding enough heavy anti tank weapons but it still wasn't like German tanks on the attack were often monstrously successful. Even the Battle of the Bulge is largely distorted by Montgonermy's stupid withdrawal order, and the fact that the deepest German push was up a single road that should have been blocked by a single bridge at Stavelot which was wired for demolition, but not blown somehow. Take away the two furthest German pushes, each one one road with no flank protection and the bulge depth would be cut in half; maps showing only a 'frontline' in what was a highly mobile battle are to blame for this distortion.